The Master Thief
by blacksouledbutterfly
Summary: Eames only shows up to her apartment when he's injured.


He only comes to her place when he's in trouble. It happened the first time two months after the Fisher job.

He just showed up at her apartment, started knocking on the door. She didn't ask him how he found out where she lives- didn't think that he would tell her anyway.

He looked a mess, his hair out of place, his clothes rumpled. There was a deep cut across his left cheek. But he smiled easily at her, rested one hand on the doorframe and looked down at her. "Hello, darling," he said rather easily.

And she just let him in.

He didn't actually tell her what had happened to him though she didn't really ask. It didn't seem like the most important thing in the world to ask. Instead she cleaned up his face and gave him something to eat and he sat there at her little kitchenette and watched her.

"You're curious," he finally said after a moment, pointing at her with one finger in an almost accusing way.

"About what?"

"About what I'm doing here. About what happened to me."

"Maybe a little," she admitted, shrugging her shoulders a little bit as she looked at him, took a small sip of her coffee. "But I'm not asking."

"I can see that. And I'm trying to figure out why."

"Because it's better not to know," she told him as she looked up at him. Sitting back in her seat she rested her hands on the table. "The less I know the less likely I'm going to end up regretting the knowledge. The less likely I'll get into trouble because of it."

"Do you really think I'd ever put you in danger, Ariadne?"

"Intentionally? Probably not. But I can almost guarantee that knowing the things you get involved with I don't doubt that it's possible that I could end up in trouble if I know too much."

He didn't bother to argue with her about that.

He knew she was right. 

* * *

><p>The next time he showed looked like he was in pain. She could tell because he was favoring his left side, holding his arm against his side.<p>

"Lovely to see you again, Ariadne," he breathed out and he flinched as he did so, breathed out in a raspy way even as she reached out and pulled him into her apartment, looking up and down the hall to make sure no one else was there.

"You know, if you keep showing up here just because you're hurt I'm going to get a complex."

"Don't worry, darling. I don't just come here to see you because I'm hurt. I come here because I enjoy your company." He gave her a smile, moved over to the couch and took a seat. He flinched as he sat down, looked at her with pain in his eyes. "But I _do_ know that no one is going to come looking for me here."

"Is that a good thing or a bad thing?"

"A good thing."

Moving over towards him she took a seat next to him, angled her body a little bit. She pressed her back against the arm, curled her legs up close to her body. "Do I even want to know what happened?"

"Just a disagreement with someone who hired me."

"Dream job or another job?"

"Another job," he said after a moment. "Darling, dream jobs don't come as frequently as other ones. It's just easier to take whatever job comes along."

"I guess." She had never thought about it that way because when she wasn't working with Cobb and his team she was mostly a student, only tended to work part time. She never had to worry about where her next job would come from, where her next paycheck would come from.

"So," she finally said after a moment. "Are you going to let me see your side?"

After a moment he gave in, left her see the bruise along his side.

She made him an ice pack and let him sleep on her couch. 

* * *

><p>The next time that he showed up she didn't even bother asking him what happened before she let him in. She just opened the door and stepped aside and he came inside with his hand wrapped around one of his arms.<p>

She took him into her bathroom, cleaned up the cut on his arm, wrapped it up. She had gotten used to him showing up when he was hurt at this point. She would have been surprised if he came up for any other reason.

"You know," she said after a moment. "This is a very dangerous line of work to live in. one of these days you're going to get hurt so badly you won't be able to show up here to get patched up. You'll just be dead."

"Oh, are you hoping I don't show up anymore, darling?"

"That's not what I'm saying," she disagreed rather easily. "Just stating a fact. Actually, I don't mind you coming here at all."

"I'm flattered, Ariadne," he mused as he watched her wrap up his arm in a very practiced manner. She did it like she'd done it a million times before. It was actually rather nice to see it. "If I didn't know any better then I'd say you're enjoying my company."

Pausing a bit she looked up at him, just watched him for several moments. It wasn't because what he said sounded insane or anything of the sort. Because the truth is that she likes to see him. She actually enjoys him stopping by because that means he's alive and seeing him there was always a good thing. Because that meant she wasn't going to end up getting a call from Arthur or Cobb or Yusuf to tell her that Eames went and got himself killed.

"Let's just say that I enjoy knowing you haven't gotten yourself killed." She said it like it didn't matter, like it wasn't a big deal for her. If he knew she enjoyed seeing him around then he would end up using it to his advantage. He would use it to his advantage and it would be a bad thing. Because when Eames had the upper hand he always used it to his advantage. And he already got away with coming over to her place whenever injured. There was no need to encourage him more.

"Oh, don't play coy," he scolded, a smirk on his face. "Just admit that you enjoy my company."

"Sometimes I think you enjoy my company even more than you think I enjoy yours."

"You know, darling, you may just be right about that." 

* * *

><p>"You know," she said the next time that he came to her home with an injury. He had a black eye, another large cut on his face in the exact same spot as the last one he had come there with. "This line of work is going to be the death of you."<p>

"Oh, it'll take more than these little injuries to kill me, Ariadne," he soothed her.

"Famous last words." She sighed as she finished tending to his cheek, threw the peroxide coated piece of cotton into the garbage. "Everyone who ends up getting killed because of something they did always said that what they were doing wasn't going to kill them."

"It's sweet that you're worried about me," he said as he reached up and took her face in his hand. He held her chin between his thumb and index finger. "Would it make you feel better if I told you I'm very, very careful?"

"Not so careful that you don't get yourself hurt constantly."

"Oh, these little scratches? That's nothing. I could have gotten hurt much, much worse, darling. Trust me on that one."

"I trust you in a lot of ways," Ariadne told him. "I trust you when we work together. I trust you when you say you're gathering information for the team. There are a lot of things I trust you with. But when you soothe me it isn't the most comforting thing in the world seeing how you show up here with a new injury constantly."

He smiled at her, stroked her cheek with his fingers. "Why are you so worried about me?"

"We're colleagues. I don't want to see you dead."

"And I told you I'd be fine."

"And I told you- famous last words." She rolled her eyes at him, put the first aid kit of hers back together and put it away. "What makes you come here anyway?"

"I know I can trust you," he told her. "I know no one will find me here. And I know you're not going to sell information about me to the highest bidder. There are a lot of reasons why I come to see you."

"Maybe you might want to rethink this criminal career," she suggested. "The dream invasion is one thing. People think it's a dream. But when you do illegal things in real life people _know_ you're crossing them."

"I cover my tracks a lot better than it seems."

"You know, sometimes I don't think I can trust a single thing you say," she admitted with a heavy sigh. "You're a liar and a thief. You're a master manipulator. Sometimes I think you're just saying what you're saying to shut me up."

"Never!" he replies as though scandalized by the very thought. "Ariadne, darling," he cooed as he stood up, moved over to her and took her face between his fingers again. Tilting her face up he leaned down, pressed a kiss to the corner of her mouth. "You're quite the thief yourself."

Moving away from her he retrieved his coat from where he had dropped it, pulled it on while she watched him. "What does _that_ mean?"

"Can't you tell?" He makes his way to the door, opens it up and turns to look at her half in the hall. "I steal all sorts of thing- information, items, money. I'm a criminal in the purest of forms. But _you_, Ariadne, my lovely little architect, you're the one who happens to be a master thief. You've been doing a good job of stealing something no one else has come close to getting their hands on."

"And what might that be?"

He smiled and it was charming. "My heart, of course."


End file.
